Novikov and Moscatt stay in the top five
Having proved their pace from the very start of the Rally d’Italia Sardegna, Evgeny Novikov and Dale Moscatt end day two of the event in fifth overall. Conrad Rautenbach / Daniel Barritt and Sébastien Ogier / Julien Ingrassia did not manage to make the end of the second day, which was extremely tough on all the cars.

After seeing the conditions for themselves on the pre-event recce, all the competitors knew full well just how tricky the second day of this event would be. On some very rough roads, such as Sa Linea in particular (SS7 and SS10) a number of upsets changed the face of the leaderboard on round six of this year’s World Rally Championship. The upshot was that six of the front-running World Rally Cars were not able to make it to the finish at the end of the day.

Evgeny Novikov and Dale Moscatt had already climbed to fifth by the end of day one and once more they proved themselves to be both consistent and competitive throughout today’s six special stages to maintain their position. « The Citroën C4 WRC worked well all day » reported Novikov. « We found a set-up that suited us. We’re in a good overall position but we will still have to sweep the road clean during the opening loop of stages tomorrow. It’s certainly going to be a tough task. On the other hand, with the gaps we have both in front and behind us, there should be no need to push too hard. My goal is to finish the rally: that’s my absolute priority. »

Conrad Rautenbach and Daniel Barritt got back into the top 10 and made regular progress throughout the morning. « The car is feeling very competitive » said the Zimbabwean at midday service. « We arrived a little too quickly at the famous Monte Lerno jump though. It was quite a hard landing at the front, but luckily we have a very strong car. » However, on SS11 the Citroën C4 WRC crew was stopped by a front-left damper failure, which obliged them to retire before the day’s final stage.

Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia re-started today under the SupeRally system and continued to gain experience throughout the first loop of stages. « We’re just continuing our learning programme on the World Rally Championship » explained the Frenchman. « We had no problems at all throughout the morning. » Their progress was halted on SS10 when an impact with a barrier damaged the right-rear suspension of their C4 WRC.

Benoit Nogier, Citroën Junior Team manager, concluded: « Evgeny Novikov is continuing his excellent performance. During what was a very difficult day, he has confirmed the potential that he showed yesterday. He is now very well-placed to finish fifth tomorrow, which is something that we are all hoping for. Sébastien Ogier went off the road this afternoon, and we will have to wait until we get his car back tonight to see if he will be able to re-start tomorrow. Conrad Rautenbach had a technical problem affecting his car’s suspension. Again, we will have to wait until we see the car to assess whether or not we can get him out once more tomorrow. »


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